Blue of the Wind, Azure of the Sea
by god of stuff
Summary: Jiraiya said He needed a vacation. To learn to live as much as catch up all all he hadn't learned. Why in the name of god did that vacation and some socialization have to take place at an all girls school in another world?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

She sighed and like the start of every other semester here, she contemplated why she was here. Jiraiya had said it was for healing. That she was fundamentally damaged. And he had been right. For all her strength, for all of her unyielding will, she was extremely brittle.

Sasuke's defection had nearly broken her. No, she could now admit it had broken her. She couldn't form meaningful bonds for a long time after that. She found herself unable to truly trust anyone, even the pervy sage himself. It hadn't even really been Sasuke's defection that had done that part though. It was the Chidori that Sasuke had repeatedly tried to kill 'him' with that did that. Sasuke was her first friend. The first person to act with a shred of kindness to him that wasn't in some way obligated by their position.

Iruka was a brotherly figure but his friendship was tainted by the fact that he had an obligation as a teacher. Sarutobi had the entire village to worry about and was never truly there for him. Sure the old monkey had been a grandfatherly figure but he was bound by the counsels to not show favoritism by helping her out with her training. After the Kyuubi revelation she was constantly plagued by doubts that the Sandaime had only spent time with him to make sure he was stable. These doubts had only grown after his fight with Gaara and Sarutobi hadn't been around after that to contradict her. Kakashi had never paid attention to anyone on the team outside of missions with the exception of Sasuke for that single month during the chunin exams.

The final nail in her coffin so to speak was that he had lacked something that not only ninja needed but that any decent human being had. He had no clue how to relax, how to unwind. She had never learned to play with other children; they simply wouldn't let him close enough to even ask. He had several hobbies, none of which he derived any enjoyment out of. They were just things to pass time when he was too tired or sore to train. All his other time was filled with training. Given that nobody had actually properly taught her how to train it was entirely physical exercise.

The old pervert had said that what defined a Ninja was the ability to endure. She, while very good at enduring all the harsh conditions growing up in Konoha presented for her, was horrifically weak to the thought of loosing someone close. She coveted her friends so strongly that she would give her life for any one of them, even Sasuke. And that was simply unacceptable for a ninja. Granted, being adverse to such an idea is also bad for a ninja but she was willing to lay down her life for any one of them at a moment's notice whenever the option was viable. It was to the point where if giving her life to save others was a believable course of action she didn't even consider alternatives that wouldn't end in her death. She tried to shoulder everyone's pain. That simply wasn't a characteristic a Hokage could have.

Being Hokage meant sitting out of most battles unless it came to the village's doorstep. Being Hokage meant sending friends to die for the good of the village. Being Hokage meant taking care of the people who had shunned her, beaten her, and on at least one occasion tried to kill her. Intellectually she knew that the last two were a small portion of the population and that the first only did so out of fear of those other two but in her heart the scars were still prominent. They had still been gaping wounds back then, back before coming to the school.

She was brought out of her reverie by Fuka. "I wonder when the Takahata-sensei is going to get here. Isn't he late already?" She was right too. Their teacher was usually punctual to a fault. In the entire year she had been here the man had not been early or late by more than a minute. He was like a bizarro Kakashi. Now that she noticed, Assuna and Konoka were late as well.

"I heard that we were getting a new teacher this semester Fuka" said another student.

"Well you know what that means don't you Fumika?" Fuka questioned her twin.

"Do we have to Fuka? I don't want to make a bad impression." Came Fumika's hesitant reply. If one knew them well you could hear a hint of anticipation belying that she wanted to do it anyways.

"Of course we have to. We don't want to give him a wrong impression after all." Fuka said with a grin.

From her seat she watched in amusement as the twins set up trap after trap.

Yes, she had definitely found something that genuinely made her happy. Teaching these two kids the art of pranking had been a great deal of fun. Teaching them the basics of being ninja had given her a sense of fulfillment that she had never had anywhere in Konoha. The feeling had very nearly crushed her and it was only then that she realized how utterly empty her life in Konoha had been, how much she loathed the village and everyone in it. It had been a frightening realization and had shaken her up quite badly for a great deal of time. She had been unable to put on her old mask after that. Every time she tried she had felt such overwhelming disgust she had to struggle to keep the contents of her stomach on the inside.

Where had she been before? Oh yes, why she had come to this school. Jiraiya had proclaimed that she needed time out to heal. So he brought her outside the veil, outside of the shinobi nations…to an all girls school.

Naruto at the time hadn't understood it at all. She still didn't fully understand his reasoning. All he knew was that the old pervert had a field day when they learned that his transformation jutsu was more solid than it should be. The standard transformation, despite what most thought, was not a genjutsu. It was really just a very delicate ninjutsu. The fragility of it came with the fact that the user had to maintain a self image for as long as it was active. Disrupt that and the transformation broke.

The solution to this problem came from her fight with Gaara. The combination transformation had one person maintaining the jutsu while the other provides chakra and movement. With one person dedicated entirely to maintaining the form and impossible to hurt the transformation became damned near impossible to dispel short of running out of chakra. They had taken it further and modified the combination transformation with some of the theory behind the shadow clones. The result was a transformation that needed no chakra to maintain that had a functioning chakra network of its own and could change forms on the fly. It even afforded a sort of faux immortality because nothing that affected the transformation transferred to the user's real body.

Jiraiya had been understandably ecstatic when they had completed it. His first and only attempt to use it ended with him nearly dying from chakra exhaustion almost too quickly for him to dispel the jutsu.

She had spent the past year and a half constantly transformed. It had gotten to the point where she couldn't actually dispel it. She could transform into her old self but it was not her true body. Jiraiya had commented in his letters traded by toads that this phenomenon was called "chakra memory"… at least in theory. Nobody had ever actually mastered a jutsu to this point in recent times and only she had the chakra capacity to have done it in anything less than a lifetime of constantly using any jutsu.

The theory was that after so many generations of using a specific jutsu it became so ingrained into a lineage that their decedents could pull it off with a thought, thus the birth of bloodlines. This was further reinforced by the Hyuga who had to use specific handsigns to activate their own bloodline and being the only doujutsu clan to still breed true no matter who their partner was.

With her already dense chakra she got from being an Uzumaki bolstered by kyuubi's own solid youki, it had made the transformation technique that would normally kill anyone else with chakra drain almost contemptuously easy to execute. It didn't even require any chakra to maintain unless damaged. The only drain she could feel happened when she changed something.

She sighed to herself; Jiraiya had been right after all though. Even when she was hiding behind her transformation, she had never found herself so at peace than she did here. This had the side effect of calming her chakra down as well improving her control to heights she didn't think was possible. She still didn't have any more jutsu than what she started out with but she had trained the ones she did have to heights. Shadow clones transformed into kunai and other various weapons that can all use great clone explosion at a moment's notice and use replacement, all done without seals.

The only problem with her clones was that they all had the transformation active. Shadow clones use more and more chakra the more complex they are. Given that the transformation everything down to the cellular level and you get human clones that take up so much chakra she could only make ten at the most that would last half an hour. They did share her nigh immortality however even if they drank chakra faster than Samehada. Tool clones lasted nigh indefinitely however with the exclusion of that one time she made guns to piss off Mana.

The wonderful thing about having her weapons being transformed clones was that they all had chakra networks of their own and with those networks came the ability to use jutsu, or rather pure chakra manipulation. Without hands to make handsigns or complete human chakra networks the only jutsu they could use were simple things that didn't require molding chakra. An example would be infusing a weapon with elemental chakra to give it added or enhanced properties or something incredibly easy like destabilizing the chakra network enough to make it explode. The former being marginally difficult but could be done with a single tenketsu if needed, the latter was simple but required a great deal of effort to accomplish.

She could make them with a specific jutsu ingrained in them but they would only be able to use that specific jutsu much like a shadow clone could have lightning chakra infused to make an imitation of the lightning clone. Or rather it was possible; she just didn't have any other jutsu to test it out with. Her entire stay here so far had been spent learning everything she _should_ have learned in the academy and training with her already known jutsu. Physical training wasn't as high on her list of things to do outside of sparing with her clones while constantly changing shape. She had built her style around her shape shifting abilities so she had no real style so to speak but that wasn't much of a difference from when she was living in Konoha. The grand majority of time was spent training things like survival skills, stealth, and spying. This was because physical training wasn't much of a help when she could change how strong she was or what proportions her body held with barely a thought.

She was pulled out of her musings when the door to the room slid open. Barely managing to hide her surprise when a pint sized figure entered the room, she watched the eraser that the twins had placed in the doorway fall on the short figure. She snorted at how much this reminded her of her first encounter with Kakashi. Unlike Kakashi however, with a small pulse of power she could barely sense, the eraser stopped and hovered momentarily over his head before completing its journey to his scalp. Well _that_ was interesting.

She wondered if…she was violently removed from her musings by the spectacular lack of situational awareness of the kid that just entered. He tripped over a rope _as thick as one of her fingers_ into the rest of the twin's traps. She was feeling sorry for him before he was mobbed by the rest of the class. That pity soon morphed into envy as soon as he was…smothered… by the more… exuberant students.

She was very interested in what she had just seen. Ever since leaving the "sealed world" as Jiraiya had called it, she had seen nothing resembling chakra use. She had read a few things in Library Island about "magic" but had dismissed them as fiction or crackpot theories. It looked like she would have to revisit those books and try to find more. What she sensed had very little to do with internal chakra. It felt more like he had convinced nature chakra to do what he wanted for him. This demanded investigation.

"Hello, my name is Negi Springfield and I will be your home room and English teacher from now on. Please treat me kindly." He said with a bow. The room immediately erupted into questions so fast the poor kid looked like his head was spinning only for the girls to be chased off by Ayaka.

Well that was a surprise. Back home, while unusual, it was not unheard of for children to teach people older than them. Here however, academics were far more demanding than to allow for this when the child. For a child such as Negi to have become a teacher at such a young age, there was little other explanation than a jutsu of some kind.

Their new teacher started calling off names "…Nagase Kaede" to which she responded "Here sensei."

As she sat down she wondered, with a small bit of hope, if things would be more interesting from now on. Perhaps there was a reason Jiraiya had chosen this specific school for her to attend beyond swimming pool sized baths.

* * *

AN: whelp. Here is an idea I have had sitting in my head for a good while longer than even Xenaruto(don't worry I am working on it). It was spawned from the decidedly large number of Naruto/Negima fics that stick Naruto in the assistant teacher role. That got me thinking "what if Naruto had been a student all along?"

For anyone wondering the sealed world is basically the eastern mage's version of the magic world. It doesn't have gate ports so the only way to get in and out is a space/time jutsu that time forgot or a seal master. They have been isolated for a good couple of thousand years so neither world remembers the other entirely.

On another note entirely, I have no clue what keeps driving me to make Konoha evil.

The story is a plot bunny as much as anything else. if someone wants to use the idea feel free to do so. I just ask that you tell me about it so I can read your story. In case anyone was wondering the name of the fic was a song I was listening to when I started writing. It just synced with Naruto's father's name as Namikaze translates to waves and wind.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: alright, because this keeps coming up this is NOT a fem!naru. Naruto has taken the transformation to the point he can't turn it off but he can change it at will. He can be male at any time he wants but he has to keep cover. Male Naruto will show up at some point. For the same reason of keeping cover he can't use any jutsu he hasn't mastered seallessly and explain away. He is under similar rules as Negi only he is unaware that there is a magic world or the various magic associations.

On another note I am rather surprised at how well this has been received. Far more favorites and alerts than either of my other stories got in such a short amount of time.

Just to take care of anyone's worries that this is just going to be a rehashed plot…well they would be right to about the point that Eva takes center stage. Mostly it will be cannonish events with an insight into what she was thinking.

* * *

Chapter 2

It had been a rather amusing week since the introduction of Negi-sensei to her school life. The poor kid was practically pervy sage's dream child. He seemed to get into compromising conditions with the same inevitability as Tsunade losing bets. They happened so frequently and often with Asuna that she would have thought one was sexually harassing the other. However, deciding which the harasser was and which was the harassed was a crap shoot.

There was one incident that she had only narrowly avoided. Some kind of pheromone or genjutsu had been affecting all of the girls and making them act more desperate for male contact than usual…. Ok so they were acting like girls straight out of Jiraiya's books. She had even caught herself looking at him with no small amount of lust. That had been disturbing on all sorts of levels. It wasn't that he was a guy. A shinobi's life was short and they took love and even just physical pleasure where they could find it. No, it was the fact that he was younger than Konohamaru and that she knew she was being manipulated into feeling it. She had a very Anko like response and barely restrained herself from testing if he could stop a kunai as easily as an eraser.

She was in the middle of the strolling club's daily…stroll when she felt the tug from the toad contract. Normally they would have just summoned themselves in front of her and given her the message but she was under cover. It wouldn't do for rumors to get around that she could summon toads…or that the toads could talk. Honestly, people here were so jumpy.

"Hmmmm, I suppose it's about time I start training. I'll see you Monday Fuka, Fumika." She excused herself and started walking in the direction of the forest.

"Bye Kaede-nee. We'll get you next time!" Fuka exclaimed. It was really quite fun seeing all of the traps and pranks they would try to pull on her during their route. The only thing that puzzled her was that they took a different route every day with her in the lead but the path always seemed littered with traps. None of which were obvious when she chose which direction to go and a few had even been hidden well enough that she had activated them. Not that it did any good but to hide traps from her was an exceptional feat in and of it's self.

As she approached the clearing she often used for camping to retrieved an inkwell from her skirt pocket and began doing the hand signs for the summoning jutsu with two extra signs. It was rather annoying but they had found that because her blood wasn't as accurate as it needed to be it evaporated into the air almost immediately after exiting her body. She simply didn't have the familiarity with anatomical knowledge nor the focus to change down to the genetic level. As such the blood that exited the confines of her body was crushed by reality and turned back into chakra almost as fast as she could bleed. Jiraiya had come up with this as a solution

While the normal summoning jutsu requires a sacrifice of blood, that blood isn't going to anyone in particular. The reason it had to be blood normally was that it was quite simple to get access to and was always charged with chakra. The blood was then used by the jutsu to write out a generic summoning seal that casts out a line that any summon will recognize and answer to if you have signed a contract. What they had done here was entirely possible to do the exact same thing with a "sacrifice" of sealing ink. It would just take more chakra.

Dipping her finger in the inkwell she slapped her hand on the ground and activated the jutsu. She watched in fascination like every other time as the ink formed an intricate and completely unreadable seal that Gamakichi popped out of.

"Hiya nee-chan! Do you have any snacks for me?" she just gave him a glare that could make Tsunade proud.

"Alright, alright. Nii-chan. You happy now?" she nodded her head while smiling and grabbed a bag of pocky from her skirt pocket. The smile was soon whipped off her face by his next muttered comment. "That time of the month already?"

She was not happy at all that her transformation had extended to that dreaded time as well. True she didn't have blood to clean up but that didn't make it any less unpleasant.

Completing their greeting ritual with a whack on the head she asked the question that had been bugging her all week. "So what has the pervert decided?"

"Well congratulations are in order. You are now a fresh gennin!" he snickered as her eyebrow twitched with how he described her completing the academy curriculum. "Jiraiya has decided you are now ready to work on developing an element." Before she could ask what she could do he pulled out a small card. "This is chakra paper. It's made from trees grown while saturated with chakra and is extremely sensitive to it. Just charge some chakra into it and we can see what element you have."

She took the paper and did as instructed. The paper split down the center and became soggy. Or it looked kind of soggy anyways it wasn't sagging at all. Moving the halves slightly showed it glitter in the light. "So what does this mean?" she asked.

Gamakichi just looked at it in wonder. "Well aneki it looks like you have wind and water. Let me check something though." He said as he reached out and touched one half of the card. Yelping he pulled his hand away as quickly as he could…only for the card to stick to his finger as if it was glued. "GETITOFF GETITOFF GETITOFF!"

Looking at him with a frown she asked "What the hell is wrong with you Kichi?"

"It's frozen to my skin! Now get. It. Off!" Blinking a bit, a flame flickered to life on the end of her finger and she held it below the frozen piece of paper. It was the only fire jutsu she knew and half the time it exploded in her face.

After giving him a few minutes to warm his finger up she asked "What was that all about?"

"Well it seems that you have an ice affinity too. It isn't a bloodline though. From what the elders told me this happens from time to time. When someone had three affinities one of them is always a combination of the other two. This usually only happens with people who have extremely strong elemental affinities." He explained.

She felt a little happy if also melancholy. It reminded her of Haku. She vowed right then and there to develop the affinity as much as possible. Even if she had absolutely no clue how to do so she was always creative.

"Alright, I was supposed to give you these for your elemental affinities. Sorry that there isn't one for ice but take what you can get." He said as he pulled out two scrolls. "These are a list of exercises to train your elemental natures. Unfortunately they are all the standard crap and don't have any hints for them. Jiraiya only has fire and earth affinities so he can't give you any advice for them."

She took the scrolls for the exercises but couldn't help but ask. "He isn't going to give me any real jutsu is he?"

"Jiraiya said not until you master at least two of the exercises for that element and show it by creating a jutsu of your own for it. The usual chunin isn't able to complete even one of the exercises in six months. However the reason isn't difficulty. It's just that they usually don't have the chakra or time to train it every day. They usually dedicate about 5 hours to it a month with missions, physical training, social lives and other distractions. You spend at least an hour every work day training and more than 48 hours from Friday to early Monday. You should get it down in no time. Or at least that is what he said…. NO! Stop! Don't give me that look! Ok, fine! I'll give you a water technique. Just stop giving me that look!" She snickered to herself. She was always amused that she could still give puppy eyes at her size…and with her eyes squinted.

Gamakitchi popped out of existence after giving her a hand signs for the water gun jutsu. Sitting down she grabbed a few leaves and started working on splitting them. She also sent a shadow clone to the nearby stream to grab a bucket of water for that exercise.

* * *

It had been a few months since that day and Jiraiya had been right. Developing her affinity had gone extremely quickly, almost frighteningly so. Developing a jutsu for them however had been incredibly annoying. She had however been able to do wonderful things with the ideas Negi had given her. She couldn't do anything he was able to but what she could do was kind of scary. She was able to mark _air_ with her chakra. That by it's self wasn't all that amazing but when you throw in the ability to smoke and soundlessly replace that air with her self at just about any distance as long as it was in line of sight…well the Hiraishin was probably faster but it _was_ a combat capable teleportation technique unlike Body Flicker. It also didn't tire her out like she heard body flicker does.

Nothing of real note happened to her in the interim. She wondered when students randomly being stripped no longer warranted being noted. The thing that had really caught her attention was that "something bad would happen" if they were the lowest class. The strip flashcard game that announcement spawned left her in a fit of giggles that just wouldn't go away. She swore revenge on Jiraiya for sending her to a den of corruption and villainy the likes of this school.

Later a rumor went around that the class with the lowest scores would be broken up. That was rather worrying as she had grown…attached to the class and was part of the reason that it was so far down in the class rankings. She hadn't been paying attention much to the class curriculum because she would be pulled out after next year regardless of the grades she got not to mention that it was an escalator school.

Yue had brought up a "magic book" that would make you smarter that was hidden somewhere in Library Island. She had been skeptical but Negi was able to do something and it sure as hell wasn't ninjutsu so she would go along with it.

And that lead to their current situation. The Baka Rangers, Yue, Asuna, Makie, Ku Fei and herself had "kidnapped" Negi to help them for some reason she couldn't remember and were just about to enter the library. The rest of the Library Expedition Club was accompanying them as guides.

"And this is the secret entrance to Library Island that only the expedition club knows about!" Haruna exclaimed. "Be careful while you are in there. There are plenty of traps for the unwary."

She couldn't help it as much as she wanted not to she just had to field the question. "Isn't that a bit much for a library?"

Asuna simply said that she would take care of it. No mention that this was at all strange for a library to have a secret entrance or traps for that matter. Sure the Konoha library was trapped and constantly guarded but it had shinobi records as well as secrets that could be very dangerous to Konoha if anybody wanted to make them public. This was a normal library, right?... Right? Huh, well damn, that sounded completely hollow.

Ah, Yue was explaining things again. She always had trivia available. Why was she even in the Baka Rangers to start with? Oh right. She stole Shikamaru's mojo.

"Library Island was established back in the Meiji era alongside the academy. It is the largest library in the world. During World War 2, rare and important books were taken here for safe keeping. The collection just kept growing and expansions were made. Nobody knows the full layout of the complex anymore. It's our club's job to explore and map out as much of the place as we can."

As they finally reached the interior Kaede was nearly struck dumb by the number of books. She had nothing against books or reading but she felt dizzy just thinking about reading them all. The portion of Library Island she had been to before must have been sectioned off because there was no hint at this majesty.

"This is basement level 3 of Library Island." Ahh. That explained it. She had only seen the above ground floors.

A cry from Negi caught her attention at that moment. "Asuna! Look at this book! It is incredibly rare!" moving as fast as she could she very nearly didn't catch the arrow that had been loosed upon the book's removal.

"Be careful Negi. Just grabbing something that looks attractive is sure to set off a trap." She told him. Poor kid looked so flustered. In the background Makie and Asuna were protesting such traps being placed. While Yue called in their progress.

After traveling for a while and seeing some of what Ku Fei and Makie were capable of without the use of chakra she briefly considered learning some of their skills. Being able to grab things with ribbons like that was all kinds of useful. She absently noted that catching books was far easier than catching that arrow. Poor Negi needed so much saving. At least Asuna was looking out for him full time now.

When they reached an outcropping they decided to take a "lunch break."

"This is really an amazing Library." Commented Makie.

"I thought the school was weird but this…" came from Ku Fei

"Back home all we had was huge trees." Came her response.

They chatted like that for a little while until Makie decided to go and pick on Asuna and Negi's rather intimate conversation. "What are you two whispering about?" she asked and was joined by Konoka with "Their sure getting along nicely today, aren't they?"

"Ah! You're misunderstanding things! It's not like that!" was Asuna's panicked yell.

"But Asuna and Negi **do** always sleep in the same bed." teased Konoka eliciting excited shouts from Ku Fei and Makie. "She looks a lot like your sister too, right Negi?"

"That's right. She even smells like her!" responded Negi only to get a mouth full of sandwich from Asuna to shut him up.

After a few more antics they got on their way. As they were traveling she couldn't help but wonder if this place was really a library. The many of the books were nearly impossible to get to, they crossed a _lake_ repelled down a chasm that looks nearly bottomless, and crawl though an area between floors _that was also filled with books_. Coming up out of the access way into another room she couldn't help but stare in awe. The place practically vibrated with nature chakra. The walls were practically alive.

She was quickly brought back to earth by Makie's exclamation of seeing this place on her brother's play station.

And there sitting on a pedestal was the book. A book that Negi clamed to be a true magical text. And she would believe him too. Damned thing practically glowed. Caught up in the moment she didn't even bother to check for a trap here and was caught off guard when the bridge opened up beneath them.

She could barely hold back a sweat drop when she found herself and the other Baka Rangers on top of a twister mat made of stone. Who the hell makes a twister mat made of stone? She didn't have long to question it as the two stone statues came to life. _What. The. Hell._

"**OHOHOH. IF YOU WANT THIS BOOK YOU'LL HAVE TO ANSWER MY QUESTIONS FIRST!"**

Oh god damn it. God _damn_ it. She had a bad feeling about the questions.

"**FIRST QUESTION! WHAT IS THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION FOR 'DIFFICULT'"**

_Fuck._ She hated it when she was…wait, that's not as bad as she thought it would be. She was expecting riddles of some kind.

Now normally she would have been ecstatic to be playing twister with a bunch of attractive girls. That normally would also include a mat below them and not a slab of rock that was most likely being held up by "magic." As it was she still enjoyed it a bit. And because of that she was in no position to save anyone when Asuna and Makie screwed them all over. Both of them hitting the wrong character and with that the stone golem smashed the stone slab beneath them.

* * *

AN: well I'm going to cut it off here. Next chapter is going to finish up Library Island and the rest of volume 2. Then we hit the Eva arc where things will start diverging from cannon.


	3. Chapter 3

For anyone concerned, while Naruto's new speed technique would be quite a bit overpowered in the elemental nations it was brought in here because everyone else seems to have some sort of "Gai speed" technique. I even remember a comment at some point that Kaede's technique being different and better than their own and "capable of being anywhere within sight in a single step." If that is wrong please feel free to correct me but I have plans for it being likened to the Hiraishin, not that that will matter anywhere near the current point of the story.

* * *

Chapter 3

* * *

As she lay there in the water, she idle wondered why the lot of them weren't dead. Oh sure _she_ would survive this and more. The problem was that she didn't have a scratch on her despite falling what must have been a great deal farter than the top of the Hokage Mountain. Even for ninja that would at least injure someone who hadn't had extensive training with falling great distances (Jiraiya). And yet here they were. At most 4 of them could have survived the fall severely injured. Instead, she was the only one to hit water and the rest landed on an island of sand and their chakra showed not a single injury, even the ones they had before falling. They were unconscious but fine.

Satisfied that they weren't hurt she shifter her attention to the "cave' they were in. It was a sight to behold. A high ceiling that looks more like the canopy of a forest than a bunch of roots holding up the roof of a cave with light somehow bleeding through the cracks, book cases filled with books even submerged in water reminding her of what the place was supposed to be. Small water falls were to one side of her while in the other there were buildings one of which greatly resembled a cathedral.

Sighing to herself and taking one last look at the insensate pile of limbs she decided to let her mind wander as she enjoyed the pure water,

There were three things that this expedition had made perfectly clear, the first being that her slacking on physical training was apparently a very bad idea. Her reaction time had slowed down and she hadn't even bothered to enhance her running speed with chakra. She hadn't made the same mistake with catching the books that were falling on her teacher but the first time was very nearly fatal to him.

The second was that she had dismissed the other students far too soon; she hadn't even been able to sense nature chakra let alone read a person with it when she had first shown up and had never bothered to examine them after she had. They were simply other students, civilians and that was all she needed to know to completely disregard their combat potential. She hadn't even bothered to get to know any of them other than the Narutaki twins and that was only because they were her roommates! She was beginning to see a disturbing parallel between her own behavior and the _bastard's_. Sure, every once and a while she would annoy the hell out of Mana but that wasn't as much a friendship as it was a rivalry. It reminded her a bit of how she and Sasuke were in the academy only decidedly less venomous. Maybe it would be prudent to at least accept one of Ku Fei's invitations to a spar.

The last and most important find from this mission was that "magic" was apparently very real and _far_ more versatile than chakra… compared to her incredibly limited knowledge of what chakra can do anyways. While that book they were after glowed with nature chakra, this cavern _sang_ with it. It was very difficult to keep her self awake with how pure and comforting the entire area felt like. If she had to describe it she could only use the word 'holy' even though saying this place was holy was like saying Tokyo was a city. Factually correct by horribly understated. She nearly felt like she was defiling the place by just breathing the air. The comforting feeling of acceptance was the only thing keeping her from having a fit. She didn't dare use chakra here. Doing so would feel like desecrating a shrine.

The idea that this "magic" was real got her wondering how exactly it would work. And that lead to how chakra worked in the first place. Chakra was itself a combination of two energies. Physical energy, the energy produced by the body, could closely be compared to a limited bottle of water or a bag of clay. The body created and stored it and as such, if you had an unhealthy body your production and storage of physical energy would be stunted. It worked a little differently for her due to her body but the concept was the same. She could modify her body at will and could produce and store as much physical energy as she wanted. She got said energy by either converting nature chakra or converting anything she ate straight to chakra.

The other part, Spiritual energy, could be likened much better to arms really. It was almost never consumed in the execution of jutsu. It was used to mold physical energy into jutsu and control its movement inside of the body. Jutsu that consume spiritual energy can usually cripple or even outright kill the user and as such they are all kinjutsu. The shadow clone could be considered among such jutsu as it splits the user's spiritual energy as well as physical energy. That was where the clones got their independence from as well as why the user got their experience. The physical energy was used up and the spiritual energy returned from where it came with its collected experience.

Natural energy, the energy that is produced by all living things is essentially free floating physical energy. Occasionally there will be spiritual energy floating abut mixed in with it but without a body that spiritual energy can't do much without a great emotional charge such as what the tailed beasts do. The one difference between natural and physical energies is that natural energy is significantly more permanent than physical energy but less potent on the whole. Jiraiya had attempted to use natural energy alone to power jutsu outside of sage mode and ended up with things that were completely ineffectual. He had commented that if she wanted to do it she would probably need an external focus instead of the internal focus of hand seals. She assumed Negi's focus was that staff. A rather good choice for a focus as it could be used as a weapon as well. She wondered if she could use one of her shadow tools as a focus of if that would be impossible.

A groan brought her focus back to the pile. It seemed they were finally waking up.

"J-Just what the hell is this place!" cried Asuna.

"Is this still Library Island's basement?" warily asked Makie.

Looking around Ku Fei asked "and where is Kaede?"

"I'm right over here. It's about time you guys woke up. You have any clue where we are Yue?" came her reply.

"Could it be? Could this really be the legendary Deep Library?" questioned Yue. She was starting to freak out Kaede just a bit. She had that same intensity that Gai and Lee got when talking about exercise. She ended her description of the place with the rather ominous words "Of course, no one who has seen the library has returned." That of course begged the question of how the heck she knew of it in the first place but Kaede wasn't about to question that. Nothing good _ever_ comes from questioning things like that. So of course Ku Fei asked for her.

"Anyways, it doesn't seem like it will be easy to get out of here." Yue finished completely ignoring Ku Fei's question.

"What should we do? Finals are the day after tomorrow, we won't be able to make it in time!" came the panicked cry from the Chinese martial artist.

"No way! If we don't make it back in time then… and what about that statue like thing!"

"Everybody calm down" Negi said.

A muffled cry of pain from Asuna distracted Negi. Stretching her senses out again and they told her that Asuna wasn't hurt at all. But out of all of them she was the only one with dirt still on her cloths. That bore some investigation later.

Negi grabbed his staff and started chanting something only to stop mid way. This confused her quite a bit. She had felt nothing from that at all. Another mystery.

She sighed again. "We should probably look for a way out of here." Agreeing with her they split up into two teams. One with Yue, Makie and Konoka would search the area with the buildings and the other with Ku Fei, Negi, Asuna and herself would search the walls of the area.

Two hours of fruitless searching for an exit only turned up a cafeteria full of food, another library _inside of the library_, some bathrooms from team one that was checking the buildings. Team two had found lots of books and trees… and that was about it. The area was so charged with nature energy that her senses couldn't map it out. It was rather annoying that this place effectively jammed her extra senses. People could be sensed because they were distinctly different but the terrain just blended together with the air.

Their discussion of the situation was interrupted by Negi's shout. "E-Everyone, Cheer up! I don't know how yet but we will get out of here seen! We can't just give up so let's start studying for the exams!"

Kaede could feel a drop of sweat moving down the back of her neck while everyone else broke into snickers and giggles.

"Study! At a time like this?" came Ku Fei's counter.

"Yeah! Because we'll get out of here soon, we might as well study!"

"He sure is optimistic." Konoka commented happily. His enthusiasm was getting infectious.

"Thank you, Negi. We got into this mess because of me…and Asuna… we couldn't even get that book." Makie said. And damned right it was their fault. They were going to end up with orange hair die instead of shampoo… but Asuna already had orange hair…DAMN YOU ASUNA! Maybe food coloring in the shower head? No that would get Konoka and Negi too.

"We don't need that book anyway! If we study hard now we'll be alright!" Negi said excitedly.

"That's right… if we study now" she started. "We'll score at least ten points higher on Monday's test!" finished Ku Fei.

Yue and Konoka found text books almost immediately on the shelves next to their group. And Negi made an exited sound. "Alright! Let's get going!"

"But before that…"

"…let's get some food!" chorused the more athletic trio of girls.

"Ah! Wait for meeeee!" cried out Negi as they left him behind. A small ping brushed along her senses that she only barely noticed. It didn't matter at the moment though. She didn't feel comfortable drawing physical energy from nature in this place so the only alternative for restoring her energy was eating.

A day later they were studying quite a bit. Negi had commented that the entire setup was far too convenient here. There was food, plenty of water and enough books to last a lifetime. It didn't really surprise her that people who did find this place either would never _want_ to leave or never told anyone else about it. It was rather warm and comfortable as well. She snickered a little that Yue and Konoka had gotten so comfortable that they were reclining on beach chairs reading some nondescript books… Wait, the book in Konoka's hands was a rather familiar shade of orange… That couldn't be what she thought it was.

Dismissing it as her imagination she caught Makie sniffing herself… come to think of it they all probably needed a bath or at least a shower.

"Where are you going Makie?" asked Ku Fei as Kaede cursed herself for being so close.

"Eh, just…you know…" was her response.

"Ahhhh, that sounds nice! We'll join you!" the olive skinned girl chirped as Kaede cursed herself all the more. She didn't have anything against bathing with them, not after the massive effort to "get her over her shyness" that the twins had gotten the entire class to pitch in effort for; it was the fact that she had nothing to hide the scar on her chest with. No matter how hard she tried she could never bring herself to erase it permanently. She did however change it's size so that it looked more like she had been shot, instead of the decidedly more lethal, having a fist shoved through her chest.

She was practically dragged over to a secluded area to take their bath. Resigned to being questioned about the still painful event she began stripping out of her uniform next to the other girls. They all got into the water, god she loved the water here. It was just the perfect temperature. The only sign that Ku Fei had noticed her scar was a slight intake of breath but she mercifully didn't ask about it.

"EH!" Makie had no such delicacy. It felt kind of bizarre that the brash and inquisitive Ku Fei kept quite while the normally timid and considerate Makie was making a big deal of it. Constantly pestering her to tell her how she got it. Kaede finally caved. Might as well give them a shade of the truth. Not telling her anything would get her to probably spread it around and get the whole class asking questions about it. They were meddlesome about such things.

"Alright but you need to keep quiet about it…and don't interrupt." Kaede looked them in the eyes, actually looked them in the eyes with her own pupilless jade eyes completely open telling them how serious she was. A gasp told her that they probably thought her blind. It wasn't entirely her fault for that one though. Plenty of people in Konoha lacked pupils in their eyes and could see perfectly fine. The only reason she had picked these eyes was that Jiraiya had told her about her mother. He still kept quiet about her name and anything at all about her father but he had described her mother well enough.

"About six moths before I came here my best friend decided that getting revenge on his brother was more important than our home. He ran away and we were sent to bring him back." She sighed. "He really didn't want to come back and had gotten involved with some very nasty people. When I caught up to him we got in a big argument and he ended up shooting me." At this she rubbed the dime sized scar. Damned thing still ached every now and then. "I was sent here because I was…not in the best state of mind to stay at home. Sasuke… he had been only person I could consider a close friend in that place after the old man died."

She let out a shuddering sigh. Now that she had started she couldn't seem to make herself stop. "I…I want to apologize to you Ku Fei. Back then…when I first came here you tried to be friends we me but… _his_ betrayal… I couldn't accept anyone back then. I was never well liked back home. He was the only one my age I had ever connected with." By the time she had finished she had her head in her hands actively trying to stop her tears. Telling them that… may have made her felt lighter than she ever had before but… she had let far more go than ninja should have ever let another know. She was only peripherally aware of Ku Fei rubbing her back and Makie's stricken expression.

After she had calmed down she felt much better than she could ever remember. She had stopped crying a long time ago when she found it only made her feel worse but…maybe that was just crying by herself? Having someone to support you helps maybe, a shoulder to cry on? She had that bottled up for such a long time. Regardless, she felt…cleaner than she did before. There was, however, one thing she decided from this entire encounter. She absolutely _hated_ secrets and hiding who she was. She hoped she could eventually tell them the whole truth… and even more that they would accept her even after they found out she was lying to them.

It was only then that she really noticed how distraught Makie had gotten. The girl was almost in tears herself.

"I-I'm so sorry. I didn't know…" she began to apologize only to receive a face full of water.

"None of that now. I won't have you crying over something I should have done a long time ago. I've held that back for entirely too long." Kaede said kindly only to get a face full of water herself from the Chinese martial artist. She wasn't quite sure how it degenerated into a splash fight but it was a welcome change from the serious atmosphere they started with.

A couple of minutes later she felt a presence enter their little bathing area. A startled "eh!" was all she needed to tell it was Negi. Makie and Ku Fei decided to teas him. "Kyaaaa! Negi is peeping!"

"Ahhhh! No! I'm sorry!" was his panicked reply. Before he could run off Kaede had already clothed herself with a towel and grabbed him by the collar of his PJs.

"Oh look! His face is all red! It's so cute!

"No, let me down!" he cried while doing his best to look away from the

"Negi-bozu is already 10 years old after all. Are you interested in naked girls then –aru?"

"He didn't seem to mind at the baths last time" Kaede added further flustering the child.

"You mean he's at _that_ special age?" piped in Makie.

"Hey! Hey! You wanted breasts? They're right here!" teased Ku Fei in a sing song voice. Negi was covering his eyes with a blush that could rival Hinata.

That seemed to provoke a rather amusing reaction out of the boy. "I'm used to seeing my sister…" he stopped to consider what he said for a second before amending it with "…an English Gentleman like me would have absolutely no interest what so ever in anything like naked girls!"

That of course sent Makie and Ku Fei into mock tears crying things about how mean he was and that they couldn't compete with that.

Finally showing a little mercy for the kid Kaede let him go and he bolted faster than Tora with the Fire Lord's wife on its heels.

"I wanted to play with him some more."

"'Absolutely no interest' he said. That's so cute."

"He is an English Gentleman' after all –aru"

"Geeze. You two are so merciless. I feel sorry for him."

They played around for another few minutes but their fun was soon broken up by that golem from the twister game showing up again and grabbing Makie.

Kaede was having too much fun and had gotten soft. It was the only reason she could see for letting her guard down to completely that such a massive thing could have snuck up on them. Then again she could only sense the thing now because she was looking right at it and they were both in the water.

"Kyaaa! Negi help me!" cried Makie.

Kaede knew the thing wouldn't harm them. It was being extra gentle with how it held Makie but that didn't stop her blood from boiling. She had let her new friend get caught like that so _easily_.

"D-don't pick on my students! I won't forgive you even if you are a statue!" yelled Negi. Whoa, for some reason that made Kaede feel rather nostalgic.

He began chanting something and then made an attack pose. "Take this! Magic arrow!"

…

…

…

Everyone just stood there as absolutely nothing happened.

"Magic arrow? Parroted Ku Fei.

"**HOHOHO! YOU'LL NEVER GET OUT OF HERE ALIVE! YOU'D BE BETTER OFF JUST GIVING UP HOPE RIGHT NOW!"** Bellowed the golem. **"IT TAKES THREE DAYS TO GET THROUGH THE MAZE AND BACK!"**

That sent everyone panicking. "We won't make it in time for the test!"

"Everyone, don't give up!" Negi yelled. "As long as I have my staff we can use magic to get out of here in a-mermph"

"Negi!" Asuna called as she slapped a hand over his mouth. "What the hell are you talking about!"

"Magic arrow?" questioned Ku Fei yet again.

"It was nothing!" Asuna cried. "A-anyway, we4 can't give up! We won't give up! We _will_ get out of here before tomorrow's exam!"

"I knew you cared Asuna! You're doing it for my sake after all!" Negi said excitedly only to receive a resounding "Wrong" in reply.

"Let's look for an exit while we escape." Said Asuna rationally.

Escape however was the last thing on Kaede's mind. Let the others find a way out, she was NOT leaving Makie's rescue until they found a way out.

She was brought out of her planning of how to disable the golem by Yue's surprised yell. "There in it's neck! It's the book of whachimacallit!"

"We're taking that book! Makie, Ku Fei, Kaede!" Yue called out getting thumbs up from both Ku Fei and Kaede. This was much more her style. She could already see Ku Fei moving to strike the golem.

The hit the Chinese girl gave to its leg was truly startling for Kaede. The girl had to be at least as strong as Lee to get that kind of effect out of stone. She could even faintly feel chakra use. The next strike threw the golem's hand open and tossed Makie into the air.

Seeing her chance Kaede leapt and caught the flying girl while wrapping her back in her towel. Makie pulled a ribbon from…somewhere and snagged the book as they were on their way down getting a startled yell from the construct.

"Amazing! The Baka Rangers really are awesome at athletics!" said Negi in an awe filled voice as they made their retreat.

Konoka had somehow gotten their cloths through the ensuing battle and was handing them out while everyone somehow got dressed mid run. It was really a very good display of co-ordination.

"**I'VE TOLD YOU, YOU WON'T FIND AND EXIT! JUST GIVE UP AND LET ME CATCH YOU!"**

"No way!"

After only a few minutes of randomly running, Yue found an emergency exit. They seemed to be having trouble opening it but Kaede. She was too busy occupying the overgrown pet rock with Ku Fei who suddenly said "I know this one! The answer is **read**!" Ahhh, questions to open the door. There were probably more along the way.

"Don't tell me… You knew because of the book's power!" yelled Makie as they frantically ran down the corridor.

"I got smarter just by holding it –aru!"

They came out in to a huge shaft with a stair case spiraling up. As they ran the continued to run into wall after wall with questions, each person answering in turn. Fairly soon in their ascent the wall below them exploded in a shower of rock with that damned annoying statue continuing to chaise them. After what felt like a long time of running Yue caught her leg on a root and seemed to twist her ankle. Negi immediately threw away her suggestion to leave her behind and save the book saying "I'll carry you!"

The results were rather amusing as Negi almost immediately fell over with the blue haired sitting on his back. Kaede was tempted to make a comment about riding bareback but was fairly sure it would go right over everyone's heads. Instead, she opted to grab Yue and carry her herself. "Leave it to me. Nin Nin."

After what felt like several hours of climbing they found themselves in front of an elevator marked "1F express". They could finally rest. Negi ran over the push the up button as Yue finally got reception on her cell phone and called for some help once they got out.

Jumping into the elevator as the doors opened it seemed they could finally relax. It was sadly not to be though. As soon as they were all on there was a "ping" and a robotic voice saying "over weight" over and over again. Of course the immediate reaction from the others was to _strip and throw their cloths outside the elevator_. Kaede played along because it was another opportunity to tease Negi. Poor kid was in the corner acting like their nudity would attack him or something.

"**I'VE GOT YOU NOW!"** yelled the demented sculpture in triumph.

Negi being the heroic little bastard that he is yelled "I'm getting off! Everyone, please return to the surface to take the test tomorrow!" only to be met with protests that he of course ignored. "Hey, Golem! Your opponent is right here!" If Asuna hadn't grabbed him Kaede would have. One way or another she was going to get revenge for giving her a heart attack like that. He definitely had the "Will of Fire" thing down pat but something nobody seems to understand about self sacrifice is that other people don't like it when you die for them most of the time.

"MORON! This final exam is for you to become a teacher! What's the point of the test if you aren't there to pass it! Stop acting cool you brat!" Oh Asuna, She couldn't have said it better. And now it was time for the completely logical and rational choice. She chucked the book at it in a fit of rage. It smacked into the golem's head with enough force to send the precariously balanced pile of rocks over the edge. Just before the doors closed Kaede made a shadow clone on the other side with most of her chakra. None of the others noticed thankfully.

She then decided to take a short nap on the way up. They were still something like 60 floors underground. It would take a while to get back up and she needed some rest. That entire encounter was stressful even if she had known that there wasn't any true danger at the end.

* * *

Down below shortly after the golem smacked into the ground a kunai sank into the floor next to it. In a puff of smoke the kunai was gone and in its place was a fully clothed Kaede.

"Oy! You alright old man?"

"Yes. Other than a goose egg from the book ill be fine Kaede. Thank you for worrying about a senile old man."

Nodding to herself she asked the one question that had been bugging her for a great deal of the adventure. "So magic is real huh?" she could almost hear him cringe.

"Yes. It is real Ninja-chan." It was her turn to flinch this time.

"How long have you known?"

"From the very beginning."

"Was I really that bad?" she asked with her shoulders slumped.

"Oh, not at all. You were quite convincing despite the obvious signs of an abused child. I cheated a little and was told by Jiraiya."

She chuckled a little at that. "He tells me to keep it a secret and goes blabbing it right after. Typical, everyone else knows but me." She said with a bit of bitterness in her voice.

He chuckled a bit, "Don't be like that. Jiraiya doesn't actually know about magic. He probably has his suspicions though. Kushina originally wanted you to grow up here and Minato agreed. Hohoho, don't worry, they still wanted you but above all else they wanted you to have a choice in your career. As Minato explained it, the children of such legendary ninja never survive outside of being ninja if they even live that long. The only reason you didn't grow up here anyways was the meddling of old fools." He let out a depressed sigh. "We had wanted your mother to give birth here so no one in your home village knew about you but your parents had great worries about the 9 tailed fox breaking out of its seal while she gave birth. I am quite sad that their worries were not unfounded."

"So then, what now?"

"Live your life and when the time comes make your choices as you will. Your life is your own now. Maybe make some more friends and above all enjoy yourself.

She nodded. "Do you want some help getting back up?"

"Such a considerate young lady but no, I will be fine. More over, won't you be late?"

"Oh, I'm not the original. She's already on her way to class." She reassured.

"Well that's fine then but we can't have you showing up at two places at once can we? Magic needs to stay secret."

She sighed but nodded and disappeared in a puff of smoke leaving one last parting comment. "I'll find you later. I think I would like to hear about how my parents found this place."

* * *

Coming awake with a start at her clone's memories, Kaede looked at the floor display to see they were just arriving at the top of the elevator. Hah, right on time…well they got out of it but the class tendency to get naked did not transfer to streaking across campus. Where were they going to get cloths?

She smiled though. The old man in the armor had let slip her parent's names.

Arriving late due to complications in getting cloths was probably the worst part of the day. The test was difficult but Negi (she assumed) did something and their fatigue disappeared. The announcers for the grades jumped the gun however and threw everything into chaos. Negi almost ran away thinking he had already failed but Makie managed to nab him with her ribbon just before he got away. (She really needed to learn how to do that. It just seemed horribly convenient.) The kid really needed to check with the actual authority in charge instead of fleeing like that. The break passed without a hitch and again nothing of much note happened… other than Chisame showing up in a bunny costume to the celebration party for Negi's…yes, she was promptly stripped of it in public. The class's predisposition for public indecency had passed the novel stage, run right through ignorable and arrived in the general vicinity of annoying. Kaede was at least glad that she had yet to suffer such a fate. She would be nervous in tempting fate of she believed in it.

Actually, on second thought, there _was_ something of note. Chao's buns are delicious. Take that as you will.

* * *

AN: Well that is that for chapter 3. And no I do not know where the hell the confession to Ku Fei and Makie came from. It was a spur of the moment thing that I kind of liked. Most of this was straight from the manga with my own spin on it and from Kaede/Naruto's perspective. Be sure to tell me what you think!

AN2: Just to nip any questions in the bud about how Kaede could be watching Negi and not immediately come to the conclusion that "magic is real" within days; Kaede comes from a place where people do very similar things daily. She was working on a bad assumption that it was some kind of ninjutsu and hadn't seen anything too far outside of her experiences with ninjutsu so far.


End file.
